cheff, is ascribed by some writers, to the alarm with which they were both seized at the prospect of the immediate accession of Peter to the throne; and to the hope which they conceived of propitiating his resentment by this sacrifice to his prejudices in favour of Prussia. The resignation of Apraxin's successor, in the full tide of victory, which occurred not long afterwards is imputed to the same motives; but, on the supposition that Bestucheff was accessary to Apraxin's retreat-I am still inclined to reject this interpretation of his conduct, as well as the insinua tion of the French historians, that he and two Russian generals were bribed by England to spare her ally. I would rather believe, as it is elsewhere asserted, that the chancellor wished to have the army of Apraxin as near at hand as possible, in the expected crisis of Elizabeth's demise, in order to employ it for the execution of his favourite plan of setting aside Peter, in favour of his infant son, and establishing a regency in the person of Catharine.

Whatever may be the truth of the case, as to the general conduct, dispositions, or plans of the chancellor, the enmity which Peter cherished against him, the affair of Apraxin, and his collusion with Catharine, were brought to bear with Elizabeth, by the French agents, in such a manner as to give entire success to their conspiracy. He was arrested when presiding in the council of state, tried before commissioners, pronounced guilty of high treason, and banished to a small village at some distance from Moscow. The sentence of condemnation loads him with the most opprobrious epithets; but the accusations preferred against him are exceedingly vague-such as the desire of making his own authority co-ordinate with that of the empress; of sowing hatred and dissension between her and the grand duke; of destroying the good understanding between the courts of Versailles and St. Petersburg, &c. They show at once the true source of his ruin. Most of the historians concur in taxing this minister with the most hateful vices. He is described as shamelessly venal, and unboundedly luxurious; arrogant and servile; ungrateful and treacherous. The picture is probably overcharged, as his system of politics exposed him to obloquy. We can collect however with certainty from the public history of his administration, that he cherished the most profligate schemes both of national and personal aggrandizement; and was as little scrupulous with respect to the means of carrying them into effect, as any of his predecessors in office.

Under the new minister, Woronzow, the war against Prussia was pursued with the utmost vigour and the most splendid success. The Russians gained a complete victory over the great Frederick in person, and made themselves masters of his capital, and nearly the whole of royal Prussia. In this state of things, the court of St. Petersburg advanced a pretension as unexpected, as alarming, to its allies. It demanded nothing less than the formal cession to Russia, of the kingdom of Prussia, whenever negotiations should take place for a general pacification. France, who dreaded the increase of the Russian power, and deprecated the extinction of Prussia, earnestly resisted the claim.

The appointment of Woronzow as the successor of Bestucheff, had led her to expect an unlimited devotion to her views on the part of the Russian cabinet. In this calculation, she was, however, egregiously mistaken. She could neither procure the adoption of her project of a peace with Prussia, nor even prevail upon Russia to renounce her friendly intercourse with England. In spite of all his former professions and direct pledges of attachment to Louis, Woronzow, an experienced and cautious statesman, would or could make no solid concessions; and the great masters of diplomacy, found themselves not only disappointed of the fruit of their labours, but shackled with the most prejudicial engagements. The foreign politics of Russia continued, as they had always done, to follow the direction marked out by Peter the great.

Independently of the military renown, and general consideration which she derived from the events of this war, it yielded as she had foreseen, another most important advantage eminently galling to France. Within the three years immediately preceding its commencement, the French minister at Warsaw, the count de Broglio, an intriguer of consummate address and indefatigable industry, had subjected the Polish government to his influence, and nearly matured a revolution which promised to liberate Poland for ever from the Russian yoke. The unexpected alliance of the courts of Versailles and St. Petersburg, arrested the consummation of his enterprise. The passage of nearly one hundred thousand Russian troops, through the territories of the republic, and the sojournment there of a considerable Russian army for the space of six years, furnished the ministers of Elizabeth with the opportunity of regaining and perpetuating their ascendancy.

The capture of Colberg and Schweidnetz by the allies, seemed to place Frederick entirely at their mercy. His situation had become nearly desperate, when an event happened, which extricated him at once from all his distresses. I allude to the demise of his implacable enemy, Elizabeth, who expired in January 1762, inculcating upon her ministers fidelity to their engagements with Austria and France. The grand duke, her nephew, mounted the throne, under the name of Peter the III, in the midst of abortive plots for his exclusion, and lost not a moment in terminating hostilities with the king of Prussia, whom he worshipped as the greatest of human beings. He separated his forces from the Austrian army, concluded a treaty of alliance with his hero, and sent him a reinforcement of twenty thousand men, to assist in expelling the Austrians from Silesia, to whom the arms of Russia had but a little time before, opened the way into that province. Thus did blind caprice render nugatory, after a seven years' war, the

most costly sacrifices and brilliant achievements, at the very moment when the object and reward of them all, could not have failed to be completely attained. Within the space of a few months, the general scheme of the foreign relations of Russia was totally subverted, in contempt of the most solemn treaties and pledges; and the exulting Frederick found at his disposal, for the purpose of exemplary retaliation on his enemies, the whole of that mighty force, by which he had been about to be crushed. The enthusiastic czar entered with alacrity into his projects of vengeance on Austria, prepared to second them with all the resources of his empire, and exacted no other equivalent than the post of lieutenant general in the Prussian service.

Europe was now threatened with something like a general revolution. It is said of Peter that he meditated an alliance between all the princes of the house of Holstein, against those of Bourbon; a confederacy of the northern powers, to counterbalance that of the southern; the conversion of Poland into an hereditary kingdom under prince Henry of Prussia, &c. - He marched an army into Holstein, with the intention of wresting the dutchy of Sleswick from Denmark, and raised much serious disquietude in Germany, respecting to the course he might pursue as a member of the diet. He was destined, however, to be jostled from the stage, while these designs of ambition existed as yet only in speculation. Six months had scarcely elapsed from the time he assumed the reins of government, when his more artful and intrepid wife, with the assistance of the guards whom he had offended, precipitated him from the throne into prison, there to be barbarously murdered a few days afterwards, by four of her ruffian accomplices.

ART. VI. British Currency. (The following extracts from a speech delivered in the British Parliament in April 1818, by Mr. Vansittart, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on his motion for the continuance of the Bank Restriction Act, until July 1819, contain facts and suggestions worthy of being recorded for the American public. The speech itself, which unfolds the general policy of the ministry with respect to the currency of England, is to be found in the 37th vol. of Hansard's Parliamentary Debates-a work excellent in its kind, and the plan of which we should be glad to see adopted in this country in relation to the debates of Congress.]

THE Chancellor of the Exchequer rose to submit to the committee, the propositions of which he had given notice. The right hon. gentleman observed, that he had waited with great anxiety, and had postponed the discussion of the question to a period of the session as late as was consistent with the expectation of a full attendance of members, in the hope that some events might arise of a nature so decisive as to enable him either to declare to parliament that the Bank of England was so situated as to be enabled, with propriety, at once to resume cash payments, or that circumstances had taken place which left no room for doubt as to the necessity of a farther continuance of the restriction. The result of all his inquiries, however, on the subject was, that, under all the circumstances of the case, he was not able to state a case of so distinct and positive a nature; while he yet felt that he could not, with a view to the public interests and to the safety and convenience of commerce, but submit to the committee a proposition for still extending, although for a very limited period, the act of restriction.

In order to render what he had to say as intelligible as possible, he begged the committee to revert to the state of things under which the restriction act had been originally passed, and under which it had subsequently and at various periods been renewed; which, at the last renewal of that act for two years, in 1816, took place with the understanding that the bank should employ that period in providing for the resumption of cash payments at its expiration. It would also be indispensable to advert to the course of exchange during a considerable portion of the period to which he had alluded. The committee would recollect that, prior to the retreat of the French army from Russia, at the close of the year 1812, the price of gold bullion was 51. 12s. an ounce, and of silver dollars 6s. 6d. an ounce. At that time, therefore, any attempt to restore the metallic currency of the country would have been utterly unavailing, as the coin would have been collected and melted as fast as it issued from the coffers of the bank. But when the French army retired into Germany and was beaten there, and when a prospect arose of a successful termination of the war, gold fell to 51. an ounce; and subsequently, when the allies got possession of Paris, to 41. 6s. 6d. and there was every indication of its speedily falling to so low a rate as to enable the bank to resume their payments in cash. The unfortunate events, however, which took place in the spring of 1815, and which were too notorious to render it necessary for him to particularise them, and which again involved Europe in the calamities of war, prevented this pleasing prospect from being realized. After the return of Bonaparte to France, in March, 1815, gold rose from 41. 6s. 6d. to 5l. 7s. an ounce. It was obvious that, as long as a state of hostility continued, any attempt at a resumption of cash payments would, for the reasons that had operated in preceding cases, prove wholly futile. From the period, however, at which hostilities ceased, it was but justice to the bank to state, that they had adopted every measure of precaution which might enable them to resume cash payments with safety. Their collection of specie had been very rapid and to a large amount; indeed, to an extent beyond what he should have supposed possible in so short a space of time. Another preparatory measure of the bank was an experiment which was first tried by them in January 1817.- He alluded to their notice that they were ready to make payments in cash of a certain description of outstanding notes. The amount of the notes for which, under that notice, payment in cash might have been demanded was about one million sterling. The result of the experiment might be considered indicative of what would take place on a general resumption of cash payments. It was found that, so far were the public from being anxious to obtain payment of those notes which were thus rendered immediately payable in cash, that a very inconsiderable, if any demand whatever, was made for that purpose on the bank. No preference whatever of metallic currency to paper was shown by the holders of those notes. At that time gold bullion, which had been continually sinking during the preceding year, was reduced to 31. 18s. 6d. and silver to 4s. 10d. the ounce. It was therefore probable, that if at that time the bank had returned generally to cash payments, scarcely any would have been demanded. It was in the recollection of several hon. gentlemen who heard him, and who had had peculiar opportunities of being acquainted with those transactions, that the facts were precisely as he had stated them. He did not wish to enter into any detail on the subject, but he might mention one circumstance as peculiarly illustrative of the feeling of the country with respect to it. When the exchange of the old silver currency for the new took place, a large quantity of the new coin was sent down to the banks in Scotland for the purpose of being exchanged. After all the required exchanges were made, a sum of about 7,000/. remained in one of them (he believed the Royal Bank of Scotland), the directors of which stated, that it was desirable that this sum should be retained for the convenience of the country; and requested, as a favour, that they might be allowed to pay for it in gold rather than in bank notes. He could mention to the committee other incidents of a similar nature, but that which he had already related might perhaps be deemed a sufficient illustration of the opinion of the country.

In October last, the bank of England, having experienced no inconvenience from their former experiment, were induced to try another on a more extensive scale. A regular notice was issued, in pursuance of the directions of the act of the 37th of his present majesty, and of the several acts since passed for continuing and amending the same, that on and after October 1st, the bank would be ready to pay cash for their notes of every description, dated prior to January 1st 1817. But the result of that experiment varied considerably from that of the former. Payment in cash was demanded to a large amount; not for the purpose of internal circulation (for this he hardly apprehended was the opinion of any person,) but for the purpose of being remitted to foreign countries. To the causes which produced that situation of things he should presently advert. It appeared from a return made to the other house of parliament, that the bank issued under their last notice a sum not less than 2,600,000/. Of that large sum hardly any part remained in circulation in this country.